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BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Mark Cohon came a long way for a swim in the Caribbean.

His arrival delayed for 10 hours because of a travel snafu, the Canadian Football League commissioner spent less than 48 hours on the island of Barbados, before flying back to Toronto Wednesday afternoon to preside over Thursday’s CFL college draft (12 noon PDT).

If Cohon’s tan looks authentic on the two-hour TSN draft broadcast, you’ll know why: it’s not pancake make-up. The man who cuts a stylish figure in his Harry Rosen suits, also looks impeccable in swim trunks riding a boogie board. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wouldn’t dare show his face when the tanned and toned Cohon is on the beach.

Despite the appearance of a quick vacation, the commissioner’s purpose on Barbados had only a little to do with R&R. He was here to meet with the executive of the CFL Players’ Association, the group holding its annual general meeting to elect new officers and strategize for the next round of collective bargaining.

“This is my chance to give an update on the state of the league to all the player reps,” Cohon explained. “We spend a couple of hours with them, walking them through where the league is going, what our key focus is, player safety, discipline issues, the things they want to focus on. My feeling is, when you get to know the players better, it helps when you sit down at the table to negotiate. It’s all relationship-building.”

Cohon also got a first-hand glimpse at a relationship-building CFLPA project to introduce North American flag football to an island were cricket, rugby, soccer and even tennis hockey, a sport which originated in Barbados, dominate the sports scene.

CFL players Anthony Calvillo, Henry Burris and Etienne Boulay were part of a skills development camp Wednesday at Deighton Griffith school, tossing footballs to prep students who had never handled one before. Bystanders, in their full school uniforms, stood by transfixed, fascinated by the appearance of these strange visitors from the north, the novelty of the activity itself, and the appearance of a large Scotiabank sponsor banner declaring that the CFLPA had planted its flag in new territory.

One student named “Thomas” remarked that Boulay, a Montreal Alouettes safety who sports a shaved head, looked like “Wayne Rooney,” the hairless Manchester United striker. Otherwise, no clue to his identity.

“You see for yourself that some of these kids are good athletes,” Cohon said. “They’re natural soccer players, cricket or rugby players. From my perspective, having worked in other professional sports [NBA, Major League Baseball] one of the ways you expand your breadth globally is getting international players. If you could have a player from Barbados in the CFL, it would be interesting for us. Maybe we could get some television contracts down here.”

There is a Bajan in the National Football League — Ramon Harewood, an offensive lineman with the Baltimore Ravens. Harewood went to Morehouse College, in Atlanta, on a track scholarship (shot put) but was recruited by the football coach who thought he could better utilize a 6-6, 340-pound hulk outside the seven-foot circle.

The offspring of many Caribbean immigrants to Canada — Akeem Foster and Shawn Gore of the B.C. Lions being only two of many examples — naturally gravitate toward football, basketball and hockey in their parents’ adopted land. But in Barbados there is no football presence whatsoever, except for television feeds of NFL games and the Super Bowl to local bars and rum shops.

“There could be some interesting lines of connection. We already have a large Caribbean population in Toronto, as you know,” Cohon said.

The CFLPA is planting its seed with visits to three Bajan schools this week and a donation of footballs, equipment and rule books to raise consciousness on an elementary level — flag football.

Two observers at Wednesday’s clinic, from the Barbados National Sports Council, Wayne Robinson and Ryan Toppin, seemed genuinely intrigued and would like to integrate flag into a six-week summer camp that involves 1,500 athletes on the island in 16 different sports.

“The mentality here, especially when you go into schools, they are usually stuck — in a box,” Robinson said. “They like traditional sports, like cricket, rugby. You can’t even get softball into the schools. There’s nothing of the sort. There are all kinds of benefits from other sports — scholarships to American universities — not to mention the total health benefits that we’re missing out on. We need to branch out and diversify to become a better sports nation.”

“We need coaches [from Canada],” Toppin added. “We need to develop a core who can teach our kids about football. The beauty of the game is that the skills, the movement, are transferable to other sports. We do have a few footballs on the island already.”

That inventory will have expanded by the time the CFLPA contingent de-camps Sunday, returns home and turns its attention to the professional game. CFL training camps open on June 3.

“We have to see where the interest in football will go on the island,” Robinson said. “It’s no use trying to propagate a new sport if no one’s interested.”

Judging by the way the Deighton Griffith neophytes enthusiastically took to the game Wednesday, that might not be an issue.

“They have very, very, very little experience with football, and we have to start with the basics,” Boulay said. “But some of them are amazing athletes, very impressive. I’m sweating, just standing here in the heat. But they can run all day. They listened, they paid attention, they picked it up fast. Faster than what I thought. I’m going to go back to Montreal and tell Jim Popp [the Alouettes GM] to come down here and check these kids out.”

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